Shining Star: A Pavel Chekov Fanfiction

Six

Pavel is eight years old when he decides he's going to make a change.

It's been a month or two since he started his basic general education, and still no one has talked to him. He doesn't even have the same people in his classes now as he did in the graduation ceremony—it was decided that he could skip fifth grade entirely. He is in sixth grade now, surrounded by eleven- and twelve-year-olds.

And he decides that, if he's going to keep bouncing through grades like this, it's not going to get any less awkward trying to talk to people. So he may as well try!

He squares his shoulders and looks around the cafeteria. He's already chosen a group to try and join—one that sits at a table near the double doors and that is made up of both boys and girls. It doesn't seem too exclusive or cliquey, and the people don't seem like the type to pressure him into doing drugs or other things his parents always warned him against. He takes a few deep breaths and walks over to the table, lunchbox in tow.

"Hi," he says. He had meant for it to come out cool and confident, but instead it sounds breathless. Nevertheless, he clears his threat and forges ahead. No backing out now! "I'm Pavel. I was wondering if I could sit with you guys?"

The boy sitting closest to him, who has sandy blondish-brown hair and a smattering of freckles, looks him up and down. "Hey, I know you. You're that really smart kid. The young one."

"Uh, yeah," Pavel says. Smart and young. Those two adjectives basically describe how everyone sees him. He wishes they'd see more of him. Well, now is his chance.

The boy who had scrutinized him looks over at his friends, who shrug, then looks back at Pavel and nods. "Sure, I guess. If you want."

Pavel's heart swells with joy, but he tries not to show it. Cool and confident, remember? Instead, he tries to give them an easy grin as he hops up onto a chair. "Thanks."

The boy nods again and then returns to talking to the other kids about something unfair that someone named Ms. Romanoff did to him in an algebra class earlier. "She told me my work was immature. Can you believe that? Immature! Just because I doodle on my papers sometimes doesn't mean my work is bad..."

"Well, it does detract from the lesson a little," says a girl with wavy blond hair and glasses.

"Okay, so then I draw pictures of x's and y's and equations and stuff in the margins, like she's lecturing about, just to see what she'll do, you know? And guess what? She still said it was immature. Plus she seemed to think I was personally insulting her or something."

"She's so unfair," agrees a girl who has short brown hair with a streak of electric blue going through it.

Pavel listens, trying to find a place to insert his opinion. He wants to tell Sandy-Haired Boy that doodling in class probably isn't the best idea anyway, but that might get him expelled from the table. Besides, he admittedly doodles in the margins of his papers too. And he has no idea what this Ms. Romanoff is like. He's never had her—he has Mr. Litvin for algebra. Evidently everyone else knows how unfair she is, though.

"I just want to quit the class," the boy is complaining, "but then I won't be able to take Programming next year."

Pavel wonders if he should take Programming, if he'd fit in with these people better if he did. Then he remembers that he hates programming.

"Who teaches that class, anyway?" asks Blond Hair.

"Mrs. Minkovski, I think," Pavel says. He doesn't just think—he's committed the teacher directory to memory—but he figures people might find him weird if he instantly knows the teacher of a class he's never taken.

Everyone at the table stares at him for a second. "Dude, I forgot you were even here," says Sandy Hair, laughing a little awkwardly.

So much for not looking weird.

"Oh!" squeals Blue Streak, turning back to the others. "Remember we were learning about programming last year, at that study session at your house? And then your brother walked in and we were all like..." She pulls a crazy facial expression with her eyes crossed and her tongue practically touching her nose, something Pavel would never be able to reproduce even if he wanted to, and the rest of the table laughs.

"And the award for Most Maniacal Facial Hair goes to..." a boy with curly black hair intones in a very bad British accent, and everyone else starts cracking up again.

"Life is like a donut!!" says Blond Hair, giggling madly.

They had officially entered the realm of in-jokes. Pavel sighed, getting up from the table—predictably, none of the other kids noticed. He could tell when he wasn't needed. He'd try again tomorrow, at a different table. After all, wasn't that what good scientists did? Tried different variables? His experiment was inconclusive. That was all.

That was all.

He spends the rest of lunch in the library, buried in books where he can understand every word and he's never excluded.